A trade union will protest later this week, urging the government to tax the wealthy to reduce energy bills.
The community branch of Unite in Cumbria will also be protesting the government’s means-testing approach to winter fuel payment.
Unite’s national body has launched a judicial review process to overturn the winter fuel payment cut.
It's sent a pre-action protocol letter to Liz Kendal, the secretary of state at the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP), requesting this.
Robert Charlesworth, secretary of the Cumbrian branch, said “Energy company profits have more than trebled since before the pandemic.
“The richest 50 families in Britain have a combined wealth of £500billion – the same as half the population.”
Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham claimed that a tax of one per cent on the assets of the richest one per cent of people in Britain would raise £23billion, meaning the ‘black hole’ that Labour said exists in the nation’s finances because of the previous 14 years of Tory rule would be gone.
Mr Charlesworth added: “The money is there in society.
“Labour can choose to tax the rich – but instead, they are continuing austerity and misery for us.
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“Despite all the profiteering, and the promises of the regular, bills will be going up again in January.
“Regulation has failed.
“The only way to bring our bills down is by the direct control of energy workers and customers through nationalisation.”
The protest will happen on Friday, November 29, from 12pm to 1pm outside the Primark entrance to The Lanes shopping centre in Carlisle.
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